Greetings friends,

ine and restore our legends, our buildings and our culture. Forget the metaverse and the ChatGPT that basically scans the world and steals someone else’s ideas. We can use our own real history and create our real future. Focus, be real, create, invent and try to do things different. We love Modesto and we can make it better.

Love is a many splendored thing. Love is why we love our families, our friends, our experiences and have the passion to do crazy good things, just like you would for your kid and grandkids. That’s why thousands of people gather each April to Love Modesto and make it better. That’s why we keep ourselves healthy by remembering to practice heart health at the American Heart Go Red Lunch on May 5. I survived my heart issues, and I need live to be better, to be stronger, and I am looking forward to my time with grandkids and I need to be there. Heart health, city health, family health, neighborhood health and so much more. We can do this. Get organized, focus and let’s make it happen.

It’s been windy, blustery, crazy, wet and we have all been through a lot and here we are, on the doorstep of spring, waiting for the next challenge.

You know what they say, April showers bring May flowers, but we had amazing amount of March rain that’s bringing the April flowers. We had a beautiful almond blossom season and the snow is higher than it’s ever been and we could be skiing into summer. Think about this, people from all over came to town for almond blossoms, they came to town for the Modesto Marathon. People are coming to the Graffiti USA Museum and it’s not even officially open yet. People coming to town for our locally owned restaurants and are starting to discover that Modesto is a place to visit, to enjoy, to spend the night and to see a show, and hang out for a bit, maybe even stay. Are we ready?

Last month, we had the 48 Hour film festival and the George Lucas may have been in the State Theatre. Creativity is our key and it’s what makes us different. We are the home of George Lucas so how to we create the next one? We are the home of Royal Robbins, Dan Costa and Ernest & Julio Gallo, so how do we create the next one and the list goes on. We are the home of Jeremy Renner, Lindsay Pearce, and Tim Olyphant and who are the next ones. Creative cities win. It’s all about getting the new companies and the owners of those companies here in Modesto. Arts, entertainment, food, culture and more. It is all about the attitude, and we need to think big, think bold, and learn from our history how to make our future better.

So how do we do this? Success for Modesto isn’t that we have a Cheesecake Factory, PF Chang’s or other chain restaurant. It is the success of our own local businesses that will make us healthy. City of Modesto and County of Stanislaus; please make it easy to create great local businesses.

We the people of Modesto need to elevate our local people and our local businesses, just like ModestoView does each and every day. If we celebrate our people, history and future, and we have the support and teamwork of our local government, we can do amazing things. Make it easy, make it fast, make it obvious how to create a new business, downtown housing, event or future.

The Stanislaus 2030 blueprint is a good start, now we have to DO IT.

It’s Earth Day this month and speaking of history, Modesto was the origin of curbside pick up in the 70s and look where the world is. It’s not just our Star Wars and American Graffiti culture, it is our way of life and our common sense that we build the future on. We need to recycle, reimag-

I love our ModestoView readers. I love the people that follow us on Instagram and Facebook. I love ideas from all kinds of people. We need our local people, we need to listen, we need to learn and we need to kick butt and be a city that is based on respect, equality and opportunity.

Thank you for reading, thank you for caring about our local life. Please support our local culture and and build on it, not fight it. Our interesting history is our future strength. You can go ahead and invent a new story or brand, and it won’t worth any more than the ChatGPT that spit it out. Be real, be healthy, and be visionary.

With gratitude,

Chris Murphy Founder & Publisher, ModestoView chrism@modestoview.com

On the Cover

We celebrate Earth Day this month. We are so excited as Earth Day in the Park is back at Graceada Park. We are teamed up with the City of Modesto to get people excited about Earth Day on April 22. Thanks MJ Mangano for this fun photo illustration. Thanks to Pete Grimaldi who always makes Modesto View look great.